• California Immigration Semester
• Classroom Learning

Classroom Learning

CSP. 1: (Im)migrant Communities of California

Mary Christianakis, Ph.D.; Salvador Fernández, Ph.D.; and Richard Mora, Ph.D.

This course offers students the opportunity to analyze the sociohistoric, legal, and cultural tensions surrounding various (im)migrant communities in California. Students will explore the various waves of (im)migration across time to understand the diverse communities of California. Students will also build critical and interpretive capacities through the examination of state policies, statistics, and various historical and empirical studies. Additionally, through the construction and revision of several expository, research-based writings on immigration, students will hone their writing, argumentation, and presentation skills.

CTSJ 105. Immigration and Education

Mary Christianakis, Ph.D.

This course will locate the topic of immigration and education within historical, legislative, and cultural debates on what it means to be an American and who has the right to an Education.  Students will explore and debate precedent-setting Supreme Court cases, such as Mendez v. Westminster, which challenged the segregation of Mexican children into separate schools, and Lau v. Nichols, which fought hard for non-English speaking students to have linguistic access to the public school curricula. In addition, students will research the historical antecedents to the recent anti-immigrant movements in California, Arizona, and Colorado, which target the use of languages other than English in school settings, and have all but abolished bilingual public schools. Against this historical and legislative backdrop, students will examine ethnographic research detailing the persistent challenges that immigrant children face in schooling, including migrant children, and the ways in which they, their parents, and communities experience those challenges.  This course will count towards the Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) Major, as an Education Minor elective,  and also fulfill the group 6 (Intercultural) geographical group for Core Program requirements.

Sociology 105. Immigrant Youth & Youth Cultures

Richard Mora, Ph.D.

This course examines the role of youth cultures in the identity formation of immigrant adolescent youth residing in the Southwest region of the United States. Particular attention is paid to: (1) theories of acculturation and assimilation used to analyze the experiences of immigrant youth; (2) the impact of geographical location, social class, gender, race, sexuality, popular culture, mass media, and technology; and (3) the intersection of youth cultures, home cultures, and mainstream society.

Spanish 105. Rancho Hollywood: Los Angeles Migration Stories

Salvador C. Fernández, Ph.D.

This course offers students the opportunity to analyze narrative stories, films, and other cultural artifacts that document a history of immigration and migration to Los Angeles from Mexico and Central America during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Many of the narratives, films, and other cultural works studied treat significant contemporary issues (e.g. the representation of history, questions of identity and alterity, questions of race and ethnicity, globalization, authority, the construction of class and gender in society) that Los Angeles faces as an emblematic socio-cultural space that continuously shifts as consequence of new arrivals to the city. Emphasis will be placed on studying narratives and films within the social, historical and cultural contexts of the material they treat, and current critical theories. Specifically, this course presents a critical view of the representation of migrations to Los Angeles in order to understand how these migration stories function as a socio-cultural medium that document and occupy many geographical spaces that establish Los Angeles as a heterogeneous cultural place and space.